Take On Me – a-ha

-

 

Take On Me – a-ha

Recently saw Morten Harket, lead singer of a-ha on the UK version of the Masked Singer. He even sang his own song and still the judges didn't guess him. 

I hadn't heard this song in a while, I suddenly remembered it was another one that had a big impact on me. Well the truth is, it was more the video than the song itself, the video is very iconic. It starts off with static drawings featuring the band, we cut to a girl in a cafe and rather weirdly a hand pops out of the comic she's reading and pulls her into the drawn world. The band then appear inside and outside a drawn mirror while a strange plot unfolds. Real Alice Through The Looking Glass stuff, the pencil drawings of the action were amazing. There's even a sinister twist as two baddies try to kill off our leading man, all rather odd but very clever stuff for it's time.

The a-ha video was crazy and so well executed, maybe it was as simple as a filter was used over the real action footage that made it look drawn, but however they did it I just though it was beautiful. We had the ITV Chart Show playing every Saturday morning on kids TV and I remember this stood out to me among all the other 80s boy band pop videos. No yachts or swimming pools.

The song itself is no run of the mill tune either, great beat and cool melody. The words are a bit of mixture, almost like another song translated into English. The lead local is very well sang, Morten has some range. I can recall what a heartthrob all the girls thought Morten was, the song ran up the charts. 

This is probably the only a-ha song I really took notice of, they did do the James Bond theme for The Living Daylights. They were a huge band at the time, they come across as proper musicians not just a butch of lads trying to get girls as some of the other boy bands of the day seemed to be, all be it this song for example took few remixes to be a hit. But as with all these sort of bands they had a great song, followed it up with a few lesser versions, got a few world tours out of it, then quietly passed the baton onto the next generation.

Favourite lyric : Say after me / It's no better to be safe than sorry

Location: Rayleigh, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wherever You Will Go – The Calling

-
Image
    Wherever You Will Go – The Calling  No idea where this one came from, total American power ballad, it's well chessey but I love it. I'm a sucker for sentimental songs like this, all about always being with the one you love. But it's not really a happy song, apparently it was written about a husband who had lost his wife of over 50 years. The songwriter, Aaron Kamin , was at his grandmother's best friends funeral and the idea for the song came to him. How the husband who was left behind would have followed his beloved if only he could have. Can he now exist without her? The words almost say that they would come back to haunt you if that was possible, love that strong can't be broken. The need to be together is so strong. But like all good songs, you can take it's message in so many different ways. Also most listeners don't delve to deep into the meanings of songs, they just catch onto the suggested obvious tone of the chorus. The general understanding of
Read more

I Am, I Feel – Alisha's Attic

-
Image
  I Am, I Feel – Alisha's Attic I remember this one from 1996, it came back to my mind yesterday as I was on a songwriting course co-hosted by Shelly McErlaine (born Poole), one half of Alisha's Attic . The group was a duo made up of Sheely and her sister Karen Poole , who happen to come from close to where I grew up in East Essex, UK. They have a famous father, Brian Poole who had a band called Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, they had major success in the 1960s. Shelly is married to Ally McErlaine , from the band Texas , they now have an country band together called Red Sky July along with Charity Hair. Shelly is now a songwriter/producer/talent scout and is an amazing person to listen to about how to craft a song. It seems she has worked with so many huge names, but the biggest thing that came across was her absolute love of music. The song itself is a sorry tale of how a man is taking a girl he's with totally for granted. The lyrics are a very clever reply to how he
Read more

Running Bear – Johnny Preston

-
Image
    Running Bear – Johnny Preston I love this song. It's another one from my childhood, it sounds like a kids song, lots of chanting and takes a bit of imagination to get what's going on. It's actually a love song about two Indian's from different warring tribes, they're not allowed to be together.  This is a proper story song, loads of words, total tongue twister. Songs like this were big in the 50's, it's not an obvious setting to write a song about, I guess Westerns were very popular around the time and Cowboys and Indians were a real hit with the public. All sounding very exotic to us over here in the U.K. anything that shouted American was fantasy. Even as a kid listening to this song as a 45 single on a record player 30 years later, it really caught my ear. It was like listening to a bedtime story in three minutes. Running Bear is a cool Indian name, it gives such a strong image of a powerful fast huge guy and Little White Dove gives the impression of
Read more